Problem: Ishaan is 3 times as old as Gabriela and is also 16 years older than Gabriela. How old is Ishaan?
Answer: We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Ishaan and Gabriela. Let Ishaan's current age be $i$ and Gabriela's current age be $g$ $i = 3g$ $i = g + 16$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. One way to solve for $i$ is to solve the second equation for $g$ and substitute that value into the first equation. Solving our second equation for $g$ , we get: $g = i - 16$ . Substituting this into our first equation, we get the equation: $i = 3$ $(i - 16)$ which combines the information about $i$ from both of our original equations. Simplifying the right side of this equation, we get: $i = 3i - 48$ Solving for $i$ , we get: $2 i = 48$ $i = 24$.